


ZsaszMask Week

by DoktorGirlfriend



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe, Earth-24, Fluff, Genderqueer Character, Hurt/Comfort, Kid Fic, M/M, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Sexual Content, Supervillain RomCom, The Arkham Home For Troubled Youth, Transmasc Pregnancy, ZsaszMask Week, transmasc character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:34:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27195874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoktorGirlfriend/pseuds/DoktorGirlfriend
Summary: Quick fics for ZsaszMask Week 2020.
Relationships: Roman Sionis/Victor Zsasz
Comments: 26
Kudos: 27





	1. Day 1: Pumpkin

**Author's Note:**

> Fics of varying length written for [ZsaszMask Week](https://twitter.com/mashimero/status/1306120445310062592) on Twitter. Featuring various personal AUs (use [this post](https://doks-aux.tumblr.com/post/626016960248004608/as-threatened-a-rundown-on-the-zsaszmasks-of-my) for reference) and additional content warnings on each installment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set in The Arkham Home For Troubled Youth AU. Features kids swearing, background Hattercrow, violence done to innocent pumpkins, and very indirect references to child abuse, dead parents, and self-harm.
> 
> ZsaszMask Week is go! So many thanks to [mashimero](https://twitter.com/mashimero) for organizing. Here's hoping I can stay on schedule.

“How’re you _not_ excited for Halloween?”

Roman scowled at Jon across a table strewn with several pumpkins and the contents of just as many pumpkin-carving kits. “Every day is Halloween in this sickhouse.”

“Yeah, it’s great,” the taller boy grinned, thoughtfully sorting through the various jack-o’-lantern patterns. “But this is _real_ Halloween. I never got t’ have real Halloween before. Granny always said it was the Devil’s work. Oh! Look at this one!”

Jon grabbed a pattern of a wide, grinning cat face and held it in front of his own. “Jervis’ll like this.”

“Well, it’s stupid,” Roman said. “So probably.”

“Don’ be a dick,” Jon scoffed, lowering the paper. “I wan’ him to have a good time. I don’ think they even _have_ Halloween in England.” He set the cat face carefully to the side and went back to studying the rest of the patterns. “But he’ll have a great first one. It’s really cool a’ the rich boy t’ take us all trick-or-treatin’ in his rich neighborhood.”

Roman bristled, baring his teeth and growling his words out between them. “His name is Bruce.”

“We always go trick-or-treating with Bruce,” Victor suddenly spoke up, jumping in like he always did when he knew Roman was about to do something especially stupid. He was kneeling in the chair next to Roman’s, struggling to cut a lid into a pumpkin with one of the thin, flimsy knives from the kits. “His parents have a big party every Halloween, so we all meet there, and then his butler drives us to all the houses. It’s cool ‘cause it’s too far to walk, and we get to eat candy in the car. And then we have a sleepover if it’s not a school night.”

“And it’s not!” Jon crowed, successfully distracted from a potential fight with Roman, which was probably for the best. Roman thought he might be stronger than Jon, but Jon was taller and quicker and claimed to know karate. “I can’t wait! It’s gonna be the best night. Candy and scary movies and monsters and zombies and ghosts!”

Victor’s face blanked out at the last items on that list, and he went still. Roman sat up in his chair, hackles rising again, but he wasn’t as fast as Victor was at averting disasters. Jon had seen and was already leering at Victor, grin as wide and toothy as the jack-o’-lantern patterns.

“Oh?” he said, teasing and delighted. “Are you _sca-a-ared_ of those?”

“Why don’t you shut the fuck up?!” Roman roared, slamming his hands on the table hard enough to hurt and make the pumpkins wobble dangerously. The look on Jon’s face was almost worth it.

“Th’ hell’s your problem?! I was only askin’--”

“Dead things should stay dead,” Victor said flatly, once again cutting in before Roman could receive the ass-kicking he just kept asking for. Except Roman wasn’t sure he’d meant to do it this time. The way he was staring down at the partially lobotomized pumpkin, Roman wasn’t sure he was aware of them at all.

At least Jon wasn’t a complete idiot and noticed it, too, his eyes widening as he stuttered out an apology. “Oh, sh-shit, I’m sorry. I-I didn’ mean--”

Victor suddenly stabbed the tiny carving knife into the pumpkin with such force Roman was sure it would snap in half.

“This isn’t working,” he said, still in that flat tone, and pushed back from the table to disappear into the kitchen, leaving the knife wedged in the top of the pumpkin, wobbling slowly to a standstill.

“Fuuuck,” Jon groaned, shrinking back into his own chair and looking guiltily at Roman. “I swear I didn’ mean anythin’. I jus’... I forgot...”

 _How do you just forget something like that?_ Roman wanted to ask, except that _he_ had sort of forgotten, too. Or else he might have realized where the conversation might end up and could have stopped it. He should’ve stopped it.

“Don’t say stupid shit like that to him,” he said, anger already fizzling out and leaving him exhausted. “He’s just a kid.”

“Yeah. Yeah…” Jon stood and awkwardly gathered the cat face pattern and a few others into a stack in his hands. “I’ll jus’... go see if Jervis likes any a’ these... Sorry.”

Roman slumped back into his chair once Jon was gone, sighing and grimacing as he peeled his still-stinging palms from the table and turned them over to look. They were red.

Little socked footsteps heralded Victor’s return, and Roman hurriedly rubbed his hands together to soothe and hide them. Victor didn’t need to worry about him right now. The smaller boy climbed back into the chair next to Roman, holding a kitchen knife almost as long as his arm. Roman eyed it warily, but didn’t say anything just yet.

“He won’t say anything like that to you again,” he began, speaking softly and reassuringly, carefully watching Victor’s face. He looked sad and a little confused, but that was better than the blank look from before. The dead look. “I’ll kick his ass if he does.”

Victor sighed. “Dr. Thompkins doesn’t want you getting into fights.” He was quiet and didn’t look at Roman, but he smiled, just a little, and that made Roman smile, too.

And feel a hundred times worse about what he had to say next.

“She doesn’t want you using that knife either.”

Victor’s tiny smile immediately vanished, and Roman hated himself a little more than usual. “I have to cut the pumpkin,” he insisted, his grip on the knife’s handle tightening. “The little one doesn’t work.”

“Okay. But maybe we should wait for her to-- Hey!” His hand shot out to grab Victor’s arm as he raised the knife. “You’re not supposed to have something that sharp!”

His voice broke on the word, and he swallowed hard, sliding his hand down to curl around Victor’s tiny wrist gently, so carefully. “Put it down,” he said, much softer, lowering both their hands. “C’mon, kid. Let’s put it down.”

The knife dropped to the table with a clunk, and instantly Roman filled Victor’s empty hand with his own.

“It’s okay,” he said, squeezing tightly as Victor lowered his head to stare at the floor. Roman wasn’t as good at comforting Victor as the reverse, but he was learning. “It’s okay.”

They sat like that for a long, quiet minute, not quite looking at each other. Finally, Roman heard a sniffle, and Victor’s hand squeezed back. “Roman…?”

“Yeah?”

“How come you aren’t excited?” Victor lifted his head to frown at him. His eyes were always sort of wet and shiny, so it was hard to tell if he’d been crying. “You love Halloween.”

“Halloween’s fine,” Roman sniffed, frowning right back. He didn’t want to talk about it, and he didn’t want Victor worrying about him, but it was hard to say no when Victor looked at him with those big eyes, wanting something else to think about. It felt like being tricked.

He let go of Victor’s hand and shrugged. “I just don’t wanna go back there.”

Victor cocked his head like a little bird. No, a puppy. “You don’t want to go home?”

“It’s not home anymore, Victor!” Roman suddenly shouted, slapping the table again. “We don’t live there. We don’t live there anymore, and now we’re gonna go back, and... Everyone will be there, and it’s the first time since... since we left, and... And they’re gonna _know_ now! They know... what happened, and that we... But now we’re going back like it’s normal, and Bruce should’ve _known_ \--!”

Roman curled his hands into fists and stuffed them into his armpits so he wouldn’t hit the table again. He didn’t want to talk about it. He didn’t want to think about it, and he didn’t want to yell at Victor, and he didn’t want to be _crying_ , but...

_The rich boy and his rich neighborhood._

Because Bruce was the only rich boy now, and Roman and Victor weren’t. Because it was still Bruce’s neighborhood, and Roman and Victor didn’t belong there anymore. Because even though Bruce came to visit and get his head shrunk, he didn’t have to live in the crazy house with the crazy kids nobody wanted. Because Bruce had someone who loved him and took care of him, and Roman and Victor--

“It’s okay.” Victor’s arms wrapped around Roman’s trembling shoulders, hanging on tight as he climbed from his chair into Roman’s. They were both bigger now and couldn’t fit in the same seat like they used to, but that didn’t matter much when Roman grabbed him around the middle and hauled him into his lap. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not!” Roman sobbed, burying his face in Victor’s shoulder and gripping his shirt with both hands. “It’s not okay.”

“It’s not,” Victor echoed, and Roman was certain he was crying now, too. But he nuzzled his little blonde head next to Roman’s and just held him tighter, the way he had since the hospital, since the funeral. Like even when he let go, he hadn’t really. “But that’s okay, too.”


	2. Day 2: R.I.P.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set in the Supervillain RomCom AU. Features genderqueer transmasc Victor, transmasc pregnancy, Roman talking too much, and mentions of drowning, parental death, and miscarriage (which does not occur within the fic, to be clear). Includes some references to [this post](https://doks-aux.tumblr.com/post/628937973597093888/victor-dreams-of-drowning-dark-seas-under-green), which despite being written for a different AU, is relevant in terms of Victor's parents' deaths and his reaction.
> 
> Thanks to [leetheshark](https://archiveofourown.org/users/leetheshark) for helping with this one! 💖

Roman was awake, which was really fucking stupid because it was probably 3:00 a.m. or some other bullshit time like that. He could only guess since he wasn’t awake enough yet to make sense of the LED numbers on the clock near his head. It felt like 3:00 a.m., and he was pretty familiar with what 3:00 a.m. felt like since any and every little thing could wake him up. Especially now that--

“Oh. Fuck...” Roman rolled to face the other side of the bed, blinking in the dark until his eyes adjusted, bringing into focus the silhouette next to him. Victor was sitting up with his head bowed and shoulders hunched, arms around his stomach and breathing hard.

“Fuck.” Very awake now, he shoved himself upright, slipping and knocking his skull on the headboard. “Ow! Jesus fuck...” He flipped the bedside lamp on, rubbing the back of his head as he scooted over toward his husband. “Victor. Shit.” It was too early, right? A month left was still too early. “Baby, do you hurt?”

Victor shook his head, and Roman could feel him trembling as he slid his arms around him. “Oh, baby, did you dream?” he asked, and then at Victor’s nod continued, “Were you drowning again?”

“No.” Victor’s voice was ragged but already starting to calm as he leaned back into Roman’s embrace. “Not this time. Not me.”

“Was someone else...?” Victor’s arms curled tighter around his abdomen, and Roman felt his heart snap in two. “Ohh... Oh, baby. Sweetheart, no, no, no...” He gathered Victor closer, tucking his head beneath his chin and trying to wrap himself around him, a little more difficult than it used to be now that there was a good deal more of him. “It’s alright, darling. Everything’s going to be fine.”

“What if it isn’t?” Victor had obligingly buried his face in Roman’s throat, lips brushing his pulse as he spoke. “What if something goes wrong?”

“It _won’t_. Baby, everything’s just perfect. The doctor said--”

“But why did I dream it?” Roman felt a tug as Victor’s fingers curled into the fabric of his pajamas. “It felt so real. Like when I dream about... ‘bout what happened to...”

“You’re just nervous because it’s getting so close to the birth,” Roman soothed, fingers gently trailing up and down the nape of his partner’s neck. “Fuck, I’ve been having nightmares that I drop the baby the minute I touch them.” He pulled back just enough to press a kiss to Victor’s hair. “Do you wanna tell me about the dream, hmm? Would that help?”

Victor sighed. “I don’t know... I just... It’s been harder than I thought it would be. I’m so tired, and I don’t know if I can... I don’t know what I’m doing, and I just...” He sighed again, and Roman could hear the catch in his breath and the waver in his next words. “I wish Mom was here.”

Roman squeezed his eyes shut, nose burrowing into the soft, blonde hair. “I know, kid. I do, too.”

He tried to imagine how much it would hurt. He missed Victor’s parents enough by himself, but for Victor to be going through this without his mother, without her experience and confidence and reassurance? Christ, that had to suck. And it wasn’t as if he could turn to his in-laws to step up in her stead. Roman’s mother hadn’t so much as looked at them since Victor started showing.

They only had each other now. He would have to be all the family Victor needed.

“I’m here,” he said, pulling Victor closer. He could never be too close.

“But what if something goes wrong?” Victor asked again, voice thick with fear and unshed tears.

“What if it does?”

“If I lose your baby--”

“ _You’re_ my baby.” Roman nearly growled the words, one hand curling possessively around the back of Victor’s head and the other coming to rest on his swollen stomach. “This is _our_ baby.”

He felt Victor shudder against him and eased his grip, stroking his fingers through Victor’s hair and massaging his scalp, smiling when he heard him sigh and start to relax.

“You know... My parents tried to have another kid. Yeah, started planning the back-up once they could tell there was something wrong with the original.” Victor gave a grunt of displeasure, but Roman shrugged it off. “I didn’t really know what was going on at the time. Pieced it together from stuff I overheard and stuff they threw in my face later. There was something... I’m not sure, but it was difficult for my mother to conceive. Took them forever just to end up with me.”

“You’d think they’d’ve been more careful when they did.” Victor shifted his head to Roman’s shoulder to hear him better, dropping his hand to pet the one Roman still rested on his stomach.

“Yeah, well...” Roman huffed a humorless laugh through his nose. “Anyway, about the time I was ten, they finally managed it again, and they told me-- No, Mom told me I was gonna be a brother. I had a lot of dumb, ten-year-old thoughts about it, but that’s not really the point. And they didn’t end up mattering because only a week or so later, it... She lost it.”

“Shit...”

“Yeah... I didn’t really understand it. Fuck, I think I still thought they grew babies in a puppy mill in the hospital basement.”

“What the fuck, babe?”

“Hey, it made more sense than the stork and cabbage patch bullshit. Anyway... They told me, and sent me off to play. And maybe an hour later I’m screwing around in the hall, and I hear a little crash come from my parents’ room. And it’s so quiet and then so still after that I think I didn’t hear it at all. But then I hear another. And then another and another and another and then a really big crash, and then it stopped. So I sneak down there and peek in, real quiet in case it’s somehow my fault, and I see...”

Roman closed his eyes as he recalled the image, every little detail as clear as the moment it happened. Some scenes in his life were like art--beautiful despite how horrible they might have been. Sometimes because of how horrible.

“I see my mom in front of her vanity, and it is absolutely wrecked. You think you’ve seen me break shit? That’s nothing. There’s a huge spider web crack in the middle of the mirror, splintering out to every side. Make-up and perfume bottles just shattered everywhere, glass all over the floor. I choked a little on the smell. Nail polish and foundation splattered all over like abstract art, and powder filling the air, floating, drifting down... And in the middle of it is Mom, on the floor. Crying.

“And I had never seen her cry before. I’d only ever seen her pissed-off or plastic or drunk. But there she was. Sitting on the floor and sobbing like her heart had actually broken.”

Victor brushes his knuckles against Roman’s cheek, startling him from the memory. “What did you do?”

Roman shook his head with a faint laugh, shrugging one shoulder. “I was ten, and... she was my mom. I went over to her, tip-toed through the glass, and asked if she was okay. The minute she sees me, she grabs me, and I thought I was in the worst kind of trouble, but... She just... holds me. Really tight against her. And I can’t remember the last time she held me like-- I can’t remember the last time she held me at all. Pop-Pop must’ve still been alive.

“And then, because it’s not already the most bizarre moment of my young life, she fucking _apologizes_! And she _never_ \-- Well, fuck, you know. She’s fucking hugging me and sobbing, and she says, ‘I’m sorry, Roman. You should’ve been a brother.’ ”

“Jesus, babe...”

“And I still don’t get it, you know? But I hug her. Because she’s my mom, and she’s crying, and that’s what you’re supposed to do. And it was so... It was the first time she seemed like a real person to me. Like a real mom.

“And then--last part, I fucking promise, baby--I hear something. And I look, and there’s my father, standing in the doorway and staring at us. No, not even staring, that implies interest. He’s just looking at us. And there is _nothing_ in his eyes. He sees his wife and son holding each other in a pile of glass on the floor, mourning his miscarried child, and he feels nothing. And then he turns, and he walks away.”

Roman fell silent, rubbing his cheek against Victor’s hair. He’d had a point he was trying to make with this, but it needed to wait a minute.

“You never told me that,” Victor said softly after at least half of one. “Any of it.”

“I never told anybody. They asked me not to. Turned out I was the only one they had told. Probably in case... what happened happened. And it seemed like the kind of secret I really should keep.”

Part of him hadn’t wanted to share it, had wanted to keep just for himself the one moment when his mother had been real. When she might, just for that moment, have loved him.

“What happened then?” Victor asked, pressing for just that little bit more. “With you and your mom, I mean...”

Another time, Roman would give it to him, but for now he shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Roman--”

“We have strayed from the point.” It was always a fine line to walk between Roman talking about himself to distract Victor and calm him down and Victor keeping Roman talking about himself to avoid his own problems. Especially when Roman fucking loved to talk about himself.

“What I’m trying to say is... I’m not going to walk away. Even if the worst happens--and I cannot stress enough that it won’t, but even if it does--I’m not going anywhere. I’m gonna be right here with you, and we’ll ride that shit out together. Like we always do. I don’t fucking know how to do anything else.”

He stroked his hand over Victor’s cheek, grinning as Victor pressed his face into Roman’s palm like the creature that he was. “You don’t ever need to worry about anything like that. ‘Kay?”

Victor kept nuzzling his palm, eyes closed, and exhaled through his nose. “Didn’t actually think you’d leave...”

“I know.”

“Jus’... The worst already happened once.”

“Yeah.” Roman scratched his manicured nail against Victor’s temple. “Once or twice.”

“Yeah.”

“We’re still here.”

Finally, Victor smiled. “Yeah.”

“Come here.” Roman bent his head to kiss Victor softly and began tugging him to lie back down. “I want you to try and get back to sleep. Do you want the lamp off?”

“Not all the way.”

He dimmed the lamp to its lowest setting, checking the clock before turning back. 3:21 a.m. He fucking knew it.

“Get some rest, kid,” he said, settling on his side as Victor did on his back, lightly stroking his belly. “Both of you.”

Victor hummed contentedly in response, snatching Roman’s hand from his stomach and kissing his knuckles.

Roman pressed one more kiss to his forehead. “No more nightmares, ‘kay?”

Closing his eyes, Victor gave him one last crooked grin. “Never have ‘em twice.”


	3. Day 3: Fireworks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set in the Earth-24 AU. Features Roman dealing with emotions and criminal levels of fluff. Includes references to [this post](https://doks-aux.tumblr.com/post/626755449136480256/thinking-about-romans-medical-issues-yet-again) and to [leetheshark](https://archiveofourown.org/users/leetheshark/profile)'s ["fireworks"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27230773) fic.

“Fuck!” Roman unceremoniously declared and flung himself free of Victor’s arm and to his feet to pace the penthouse floor. “Goddammit! Fucking stupid bullshit...”

Left alone on the couch, Victor let his arm drop and didn’t take it personally. This was clearly a Roman problem, one that he’d been having for the better part of the afternoon. For the last several hours he’d repeated a pattern of cozying up to Victor, being especially affectionate, seeming on the verge of telling him something, and then becoming inexplicably frustrated and storming around their home, cussing out his own thoughts or life itself or whatever the source of his difficulties was today.

If he wasn’t becoming violent, it was usually best to just give Roman the space to rant and rave until he sorted himself out or came seeking coddling. But it was taking longer than usual today, and at this point was poised to significantly delay dinner and post-dinner snuggling, so Victor decided to get proactive. It did seem to involve him somehow.

“Hey, boss,” he said quietly, approaching with caution as Roman continued to carry on about how stupid whatever-it-was was. “S’there something you wanna tell me?”

Roman snapped his head to look at Victor, demeanor instantly softening. “Oh, baby. Oh, not you.” He scooped Victor’s face into both his hands. “You’re not stupid. I don’t think you’re stupid.”

“Good to know.” Victor gently took hold of Roman’s wrists and lowered his hands from his face. “But, nah, I meant you’ve been acting like you wanna say something.”

Roman’s mood shifted again, and he became evasive and self-conscious, glancing away at the floor.

“Is that it?” Victor asked, though clearly it was, gently massaging Roman’s inner wrists with his thumbs. “You know you can tell me anything, Roman.”

Roman shook his head very slightly, and, again, Victor didn’t take offense. His boss had to work it out. “I... I want to ask you something.”

“Yeah? Ask me what?”

He shook his head more firmly. “It’s stupid.”

“I’m sure it’s not.”

“No.” Roman grit his teeth, his frustration quickly mounting again. He yanked his wrists from Victor’s grip, and Victor let him, holding his hands up in a surrendering motion. “It’s stupid because I can’t.”

“Can’t what, boss?”

“Ask you.”

“Why not?”

“Because!” He gestured vaguely but quite adamantly with both hands. “It... It’s stupid!”

This was not proving as productive as Victor had hoped, but his patience was near bottomless where Roman was concerned. “Why is it stupid, boss?”

“Because I don’t know!”

“Don’t know what?”

“I don’t know how to ask you out!”

Victor didn’t know what he’d been expecting, but it almost specifically hadn’t been that. “Uh...” He floundered for a response, only able to think that this was actually a pretty good reason to delay dinner.

“I don’t fucking know how to ask you out!” Fortunately, Roman didn’t need further encouragement to keep talking and barrelled right ahead. “Because we’ve been fucking for ten years and living together for most of that, and I’ve never asked you out! Because I was an asshole, and I threw you out, and you came back, and I love you, and I told you that, and we’re together now, and I’ve _never_ asked you out! Because I’m selfish and awful and _stupid_!”

Victor blinked slowly, feeling a dazed grin creep over his face. “I don’t think you’re stupid.”

“Fuck...” Roman grimaced, quickly dropping his face into his hands. Despite his embarrassment, a weight had clearly been lifted from his mind; his breathing was slowing, and he’d stopped pacing and fidgeting.

Victor inched back towards him, grin growing wider. “You wanna ask me out?”

“Yeah...” Roman was an adorable shade of pink behind his hands. “I do.”

“Where?”

Roman shook his head again. “It’s stu--”

“Roman.” Victor gently pried Roman’s hands from his face, trying to contain the giddy squirming in his gut long enough to walk his boss through the final steps of his emotional crisis. “It’s not stupid. Just tell me.”

Roman bit his lip and nodded. “Okay,” he began, and thank God because this bashful act was not helping Victor keep his cool at all. “Okay. You, um... You know the park? I mean, at the harbor. I mean, the big-- The amusement-- The park on the water-front. Amusement Mile. Fuck.”

“Yeah, I know it.” Victor slid his hands to Roman’s, squeezing them encouragingly and nodding for him to continue.

“I guess they’re having some kind of anniversary or founding celebration or whatever this weekend. With, ah, with fireworks.” Roman straightened up, trying to recall some of his swagger. “And I know it’s cheesy and cheap and dirty and even thinking about some of those rides makes me sick, but I thought we might at least... ride the Ferris wheel like... like...”

“When we were kids?” Victor offered, practically vibrating with affection.

“Yeah. And... watch the fireworks...”

Victor squeezed his hands again, gently nudging his forehead against Roman’s. “Like when we were kids.”

Roman rolled his eyes like he expected it to do anything to offset the flush in his cheeks or the smile tugging at his mouth. “Yeah.”

“Okay.” Victor forced himself to release Roman’s hands and back away, giving him space. “Alright. So ask me.”

Roman looked startled. “Ah. Right, right.” He pulled himself together, fixing his hair with a practiced sweep of his hand and straightening his spine. With a short, steadying breath, he fixed his eyes on Victor and smiled. “Victor. Would you--?”

“I’d love to.”

“Oh, fuck off!” Collapsing into laughter and Victor’s opened arms, Roman half-heartedly knocked him around the shoulder blades. “You piece of shit!”

“You had it coming,” Victor grinned, nipping at Roman’s ear, too smug and pleased and full of butterflies to even pretend to be sorry. “You did make me wait ten years.”

“Ten years and some fifteen before that. You’ve been waiting a long time.” Roman’s voice grew softer, and he soothed his hands over the spots he’d hit. “I thought about it, you know. A lot. Being kids and the Ferris wheel and the Fourth of July. I always wanted to do it again.”

Victor’s face hurt from grinning so hard, and he tucked it against Roman’s neck. The words were sweet and nostalgic and everything Victor had ever wanted to hear Roman say. It might have been the most perfectly happy moment of his life.

And he still couldn’t help himself.

“You’d better fucking put out this time.”

“I was _twelve_ , Victor!” Roman shoved Victor off of him, exasperated to the point of disgust within the second, and Victor basked in his victory. “And you were eleven, and I had no idea you had our entire fucking wedding planned! Christ, my balls hadn’t even dropped, how was I supposed to know you wanted to make out on the Ferris wheel? Maybe make a move instead of expecting miracles of perception from a kid that still thought third base was when you held hands under the covers. What do you want from me? A fucking time machine or--?”

Victor kissed him to shut them both up.


	4. Day 4: Costumes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set in the Earth-24 AU. Roman and Bruce are 10, and Victor is 9. Features unprecedented amounts of fluff and potentially controversial opinions of the _Indiana Jones_ franchise. This is probably the cutest thing I've ever written.
> 
> To be continued in Day 7: Trick-or-Treat.

“You know what you’re gonna be yet?”

“Not really.” Roman blew warm air into his cupped hands and shivered. The three of them--Roman, Bruce, and Victor--were bundled up in blankets in front of the fireplace in Bruce’s room, having finally been dragged in from playing in the garden by the butler because the brain they collectively shared hadn’t registered that it was freezing outside. Now with the feeling returning to their extremities and hot chocolate on the way, that brain was concerned with thoughts of Halloween’s imminent approach. “I was thinking maybe an archaeologist, but--”

“Like Indiana Jones?” Bruce asked with that dumb, innocent smile that meant he was starting trouble on purpose.

Roman gave him a withering glare. “But people keep saying that.”

Bruce giggled. “I don’t understand why those movies make you so mad.”

“Because he’s not an archaeologist!” Punching the floor or stamping his foot meant sticking those out of the warmth of his blanket cocoon, so Roman did an angry little hop instead. “He’s got a whip and a gun, and he never digs up anything _once_!”

“Because nobody wants to watch that movie, Roman.”

“I do,” Roman groused, retreating further into his blanket.

Bruce ignored him and turned to Victor, who’d been silently watching them and playing with a toy dinosaur he’d found on Bruce’s floor. “What about you, Victor? What’re you gonna be for Halloween?”

“Uhhh...” Victor tipped his head back while he thought, his fingers stuck between the dinosaur’s teeth. “I dunno... Maybe a werewoof?”

(Roman didn’t bother to correct him because he was pretty sure Victor just liked to say it that way.)

“You were a werewolf last year.”

“I like werewoofs.” Victor pulled his blanket over his head like a hood and growled. “Grrr!”

“Good doggie,” Roman indulged him before smirking at Bruce. “So we can’t repeat costumes now? What’re you gonna be this year, Bruce? The Grey Ghost? Or Zorro? Or the Grey Ghost? Or Zorro? Or the--?”

“Hey, I’m not always those!” Bruce said, indignant. “You don’t know, I could be lots of things this year. Like--”

“Robin Hood?” Victor asked, supplying the third costume in Bruce’s Halloween rotation. He’d only been trick-or-treating with them for the last couple of years, but he’d seen the pictures from before.

Bruce glared at them as Roman fell back laughing and gave a haughty little toss of his head as he stood up, blanket draped around him like a cape. “Maybe I’ll go tell Alfred you guys don’t want his famous hot chocolate.”

“Who says it’s famous?” Roman started to sit up when a slipper hit him in the face and sent him back, gagging. “Ew! Bruce! What is wrong with your feet?!”

Bruce’s laughter and uneven footfalls darted past him and disappeared down the hall. Rubbing his nose to rid it of Bruce’s feet cooties, Roman sat up and came face-to-face with Victor, who’d scooted over in his blanket to blink his huge, brown eyes at him.. It might have startled Roman if it didn’t happen so much. (Maybe it startled him a little.)

“Hey. He’s only kidding, you know?” Roman reassured him, taking a guess as to why he was staring at him so expectantly. “He’s gonna bring us the hot chocolate.”

Victor tapped the toy dinosaur’s snout against Roman’s nose. “Rawr.”

Roman wrinkled his nose and play snapped his teeth, causing Victor to drop the toy and crawl out of his own blanket and under Roman’s, burrowing up beside him, boney little hip pressing into his.

“Hi.”

Victor did stuff like this a lot. He always seemed to want to be close to Roman and touch him and share things with him. And Roman didn’t mind, not like he did when other people got too close or tried to touch him. Victor was different. It was nice when he was close.

“Hey, kid. What’s up?”

“I was thinking ‘bout the costumes,” Victor said, almost shy. “What if ours matched?”

“Like if we wore the same thing?”

“No, but, like, if they go together or were from the same thing.” Victor rocked himself side-to-side, clearly excited by his idea. “Like, one time my mom and dad dressed up as the parents from _The Addams Family_. What if we did something like that?”

“Oh.” Roman hadn’t thought about that. “Do you want to?”

Victor rocked faster. “Yeah! ‘Cause we’re best friends, and best friends do stuff like that. So if our costumes match, then everyone will know we’re best friends. Like, even people we don’t know.”

“Huh...” Roman scrunched up his face, head tilted thoughtfully, but it didn’t take much thinking at all. It sounded fun and made sense, and... Victor wanted people to know they were best friends. That felt pretty good. “Yeah. Okay. Let’s do that.”

“YES!” Victor flung his arms around Roman’s neck, toppling them both to the floor in a giggling heap. They wrestled for a moment, rolling around and tangling the blanket around their legs and itself, until Roman had to stop and catch his breath. (Sometimes he could have too much fun, and it would start to feel scary.)

“Okay,” he panted, pulling Victor to sit up with him. “So what should we be? Do you have any ideas?”

Victor shook a loop of blanket off him like a puppy and grinned at Roman, pink-faced and bright-eyed. “Uh-huh...”


	5. Day 5: Full Moon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set in the Earth-24 AU. Features frotting, some fond reminiscing about murder and gore, and a brief mention of the greatest untold love story of Gotham City. A note about Victor's scars in this 'verse: his tallies are all in fairly neat groups of five on his chest and represent a slightly more realistic number of kills. There are various scars on the rest of his body, but they're from occupational hazards and not quite as numerous as they are in the movie.
> 
> This [ambient mix](https://fun-other.ambient-mixer.com/burning-as-a-double-entendre) was made for a different, unfinished fic, but it works just as well here.
> 
> Please note the increased rating. I think this chapter only rates an M, but the next has at least one line that earns itself an E, so I just went ahead. And please forgive me being a day late with this one.

“I can hear you thinking.”

“Huh?” Victor turned his eyes away from the ceiling to the man lying next to him. Roman had his naked back to Victor, his face glowing softly blue in the light from his phone screen. He glanced back at Victor without moving, just barely smiling.

“It’s loud.”

“Sorry, boss.”

“Mmm.” Roman looked back to his phone. “What is it?”

“S’nothin’. I mean, yeah, I was just thinking.” His voice dropped, cautious and even shy. “ ‘Bout the night we killed them.”

Victor half-expected Roman to ask who. There had been a lot of “thems,” after all. But he set his phone on the nightstand without a word and turned to face Victor, holding the sheet at his waist with one hand and propping his chin in the other. “What about it?”

“All of it. I mean... I think about it a lot. I like to think about it.” Roman smiled and gave a suggestive little hum, and Victor was tempted to abandon his train of thought and see where that might lead instead. “I was just trying to remember something...”

Roman tilted his head, lips pursed and eyes soft. “What’s that, baby?”

“S’a little weird, but...” Victor’s gaze drifted back to the ceiling as he spoke, getting lost in the memory again.

He remembered so much about that night. The sound of his own footsteps through the still, dark halls. The anticipation as he waited outside the master bedroom for Roman to call him in. The slice of his knife through Verity Sionis’ throat, the resignation in her eyes. Roman’s fingers curled with his in the blood and heat as they pulled Richard’s face from his skull together, the way he’d _screamed_. And outside, afterwards, oh, yes. The wet grass and the roar of the fire behind them. The sting of his blade on his chest, the rush of almost knowing what it meant. Roman’s breathless laugh and the look in his eyes, and, finally, _finally_ , that very first taste of his mouth.

Victor never wanted to forget. Not a single detail. And so...

“D’you remember the moon?”

“...What?”

Victor cleared his throat awkwardly, practically able to hear Roman’s raised eyebrow. “Like, was it full? I was trying to remember, and I don’t know if it was full or not. I think maybe. But I don’t if it really was, or if I just... want it to be.”

“You _want_ it to be?”

“ ‘Cause it’d be... Y’know. Nicer.”

He risked a glance at Roman, watching as his dumbfounded expression melted into a smirk. “Mmm, baby,” he crooned, mocking but still a little genuinely amorous, reaching over to scratch Victor’s chest. “You get so romantic after we fuck.”

Victor thought he was pretty goddamned romantic the whole time, thank you very much, but he didn’t manage more than a huff to defend himself before Roman kept talking. “No, I don’t remember the moon at all.”

“Right,” Victor nodded, fixing his eyes on the far wall. It shouldn’t bother him. Why should Roman remember when he can’t? It shouldn’t mean anything.

“I remember the fire, mostly,” Roman continued. “Once we were outside, of course. It was so big and bright. And so _loud_. I could barely hear us speak.” He swirled his finger in a tiny circle over and over on Victor’s chest, sighing dreamily. “So gorgeous... And it caught so fast. I knew Lynns had said it would, but I still couldn’t believe it. He was a fucking artist.”

Jealousy bubbled in Victor’s chest at the mention of Lynns, his teeth setting in a silent growl. It was pointless, he knew. Lynns had only been an ally, and a good one, and that was all in the past. Victor didn’t think he even lived in Gotham anymore. There were rumors that he’d run off with Killer Moth after his last stint in Arkham, and they were raising a kid in Central City now.

But none of that meant Victor wanted to hear about Lynns and his fucking _artistry_ right now--naked in bed, post- and possibly pre-coital, revisiting one of his most cherished memories, and Roman probably half-hard while he said it.

“So gorgeous,” Roman said again, much softer, and he was looking at Victor now. “The way it made everything glow. And you. The light on your face and in your eyes and on your chest where your shirt was open. Shining all orange and gold. You were so beautiful.” He closed his eyes with a shudder, petting Victor’s chest hair. “You’re always so beautiful.”

Eyes still closed, he walked his fingers over Victor’s chest, seeking out a particular grouping of the scars recorded in his skin. They stuck out among the others, uneven, made with a less steady and practiced hand. Roman’s fingertips skipped over the largest one to stroke the two that followed. The first of them--the second of them all--was Victor’s first deliberate tally, the first he’d made while almost understanding its purpose. It was for Roman’s mother, for her soul set free. The next he and Roman had made together--his hand tight, wet, and warm around Roman’s on the handle--just like they’d defaced Roman’s father together before leaving him to burn. He’d deserved to suffer as much as possible before meeting his reward.

“I still can’t believe you did this for me,” Roman murmured, barely audible, as he curled closer to Victor. “I’d have understood if you’d said no. I would have. But you--” He gasped softly, hips pressing forward, and he was more than half-hard. “Oh, Victor, you...”

He looked at Victor then almost bashfully, eyes half-lidded, biting his lip, aroused and vulnerable, and Victor had to forcefully swallow back the words creeping up his throat. Roman couldn’t hear them. Those words had only ever been used to hurt him, and Victor would never, ever hurt Roman. Not so long as he lived. Even if it hurt Victor sometimes to keep them inside.

He found other ways to say them.

“I’d do anything for you, Roman. Always would have. Always will.”

Roman moaned wordlessly, scrambling to climb over Victor, the sheet sliding from his hips as he straddled him. Victor caught him in his arms, forgetting the moon and jealousy and words he couldn’t say as Roman grabbed his face and kissed him hard and desperate.

“I should’ve fucked you that night,” Roman said against his lips. “I should’ve let you have me. I know you-- Oh--!” He broke off on a groan, rutting himself against Victor’s stomach, so needy despite everything they’d done only moments ago. “Forgive me, baby.”

“Shhh,” Victor soothed, stroking Roman’s cheek. “It’s alright. We still had so much to do after. And you weren’t ready.” He pushed the hair from Roman’s eyes so he could see Victor’s smile, see the affection in his eyes. That was another way he could tell him. “You were worth the wait.”

Roman made a trembling noise, eyes rolling back and whole body going limp in a swoon. See? Victor was romantic as hell.

“Oh, I’m ready _now_ , baby,” Roman purred, pushing himself to his back and tugging Victor along by the arm. “You do anything you want to me. Everything you wanted to do that night. I’m yours. Fuck everything else.”

He was right, Victor thought. Who cared if Victor couldn’t remember every little detail of that night, or if Roman sometimes thought fondly of old friends, or if Victor couldn’t use one specific word to tell Roman how he felt? Roman was his, and he was Roman’s, and they had so much left to do together. So many more memories to make. That was all that mattered.

“Fuck everything else,” Victor echoed, settling comfortably between Roman’s legs and grinding their hips together. It usually took him a minute longer than Roman to recover, but only a minute. “Fuck Lynns. Fuck the moon.”

Roman laughed, grabbing Victor’s neck and butting their heads together playfully. “Fuck _me_ , Victor.”

Victor grinned wolfishly. “Anything for you.”


End file.
